Day 329

Wednesday November 11

Today was Pepero day. I got a few treats from my students. 2 students gave me the big pieces of pepero and one student gave me a box. A few other students gave me small pieces of pepero.

My first class was good. At the beginning of class the students were asking for free time since it was pepero day. They wanted to have free time starting at 4:30 which was only 20 mins after class started. I told them no. I told them 4:45. Then another student tried to negotiate to 4:43 so I gave in for those extra 2 minutes. Today we did a writing lesson on using exact words and directions. They did a good job. During free time they wrote on the board. One student drew spongebob sticking up his middle finger. oh my.

We had a good class in my 2nd class. We only had to do one lesson today. We talked about one and more than one and dialogue. They had fun with the dialouge part. I'd have one student say something and the other student would write it down. Kay said, "I am hungry." One of the students thought it would be funny to call one of her friends and have me answer the phone. So she called her friend and I kept saying hello in English and her friend didn't really say anything. Then the guy wanted to call one of the classmates who was absent and have me answer the phone. The classmate didn't answer the phone. His dad answered. ha. Then they were doing math problems on the board and I couldn't do the problems! I can't remember all the rules about fractions. I stumped them by putting an algebra and squaring a number on the board. ha.

My conversation class was somewhat productive. I had one new student today. I have a total of 10 pre-middle school students in that class. One of the boys wanted to change his name so he changed it to mi chim nim and the other boys told on him and said that was a bad word. He changed it again and they said that was a bad word. They asked for free time since it was pepero day. I told them I'd give them 10 mins of free time. The boys like to play around in class. They talk and hit each other all the time. They like to tell on each other when one person says bad words in Korean. One of them said that one of the boys said "son of a bitch" in Korean.The girls do their work. Most of the people practice most of the time. I had to be one girl's partner because there were an uneven number of people in class today. Today we talked about When you meet your friends what do you usually do. We were talking about infinitives. Example: She is going to the mall to shop.

After class I looked up the meaning of one of the names the boy wanted to have. It meant 'crazy guy'.

My last class was no so good. I had to have my lowest level class in the computer lab. One of the students wanted his friend to sit in our class. He sat in our class and played on his Nintendo DS. One student gave me a box of pepero. The girls gave me a stick of pepero. One student couldn't get her ID and password to work. I don't know whats wrong with it. So I just gave her the general ID that I use to login so she could do the work.I have to constantly beg the students to do their work. They have plenty of time to finish but they play around so much that they dont finish. I'm going to start giving them a grade on the classwork. not that they care about their grade anyway. Its really simple, but they don't want to take the time to find the answers. Its always a struggle in that class. I'm seriously thinking of asking the Korean teacher if I can just print out the articles and have that class in the classroom. I'm tired of putting up with their crap. One of my students said I was a devil this semester. He said I was mean because I never let them play a game. I tried to explain that if you dont behave you won't get a game. I told them today not to even ask for a game on Friday because their behavior was bad in my class. I ask them why they are so mean to me and all they do is just laugh because I'm getting angry at them. Bad behavior=no game. They need to understand that! I think these parents need to teach their kids about respect. They don't respect me. I beg them to behave but they won't. If I don't like kids when I get to the USA its because of my students who drove me crazy!

After I left school a middle aged Korean guy started talking to me on the subway. He spoke pretty good English. He is a social studies teacher. He was asking me to recommend some books for him to read. The only one I could think of off the top of my head was "Freakonomics." I enjoyed that book. He actually had that book in his shopping bag!haha. He bought "Freakonomics" on CD so he could listen to it. He was asking for my opinion on the book but its been so long that I can't remember specifics. We talked until I got to Bulgwang.

After school I went to the gym. Tonight was my last night at the gym so me and Lesley went together one last time. I walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes. I told the people that I normally talk to that it was my last day. They all wanted to know why. I told them I was leaving korea soon. They all gave me hugs. I'm going to miss all of them. I didn't get to say a formal goodbye to my dear friend at the front desk. He had already left by the time I got there. I should have told him bye yesterday, but I thought maybe I'd see him tonight. I left him a note just thanking him for being a good friend and telling him to be confident in his English. Almost everytime we'd talk he'd apologize for 'not being good at English'. Goodbyes are hard! I think I'll go back and say a final goodbye during my last week in Korea. We got a little gift at the gym. The gym is celebrating its 1 year anniversary. We got a gatorade drink in a can and a rice cake. eww. I'm not eating the rice cake!

I saw something funny on the way home from the gym. People in Korea sleep on the subway. I saw a man sleeping standing up. He was leaning against the metal pieces beside the door. I would have taken a picture but I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself.